THE BACK STORY


THE BACK STORY: In January 2016 I launched "Well Used, Well Loved" (WUWL)a long term community art project that explores age, beauty, impermanence and attachment through a hand woven dish towel and reflective writing/drawing. Eight households from England to Oregon "adopted" a hand woven linen towel to use however they wish. Every other week I sent a prompt for reflection to be recorded in a small journal that I provided. The response to my initial call to participate in WUWL was overwhelming. Over 50 households expressed interest in taking part in the project and I only had 8 towels.


So I created a secondary project that dovetailed with the first one. This second group of ultimately 38 households (Maine to Arizona) wrote and drew on kozo paper (a special Japanese paper) to record their response to my prompts. Thru a hands-on workshop at my studio I taught local folks from this group how to spin their kozo paper into thread using a Japanese technique called Shifu. I created a video tutorial for those who wanted to learn to spin their paper from afar.


Prompts to both groups were the same. For example Prompt #6 was: "The materials for this project are hand woven linen and Kozo paper. Both are created from plant fibers, known for their absorption qualities. Absorption can also been seen as dissolving boundaries. In that light what parallels or connection do you observe between your own ability to absorb, to soak up, to empathize? What connections do you perceive between your linen/paper and the action of union, of dissolving boundaries, connection? What value do these actions have today.


In September 2017 I began to collect the 8 towels, the kozo papers and the journals to wrap up the project. The journals, the used/loved towels and the completed four panel piece woven from the community threads combine to create an installation that honors and reflect the spirit of this project.

Saturday, February 6, 2016

Chew on that

Birthday cookies with towel.
Thank you to all who continue to post in our FB group (closed for now) - to share openly your musings on age, beauty, wear/tear, love and cherishing. Whether it may be an object, a memory, a person or a dream - it all weaves together to create a life, a family, a community, a culture.


Your words give me much to "chew on" as well.
"I wanted to be a part of this project to come out of my isolation, and perhaps get some inspiration for this stage of my life. I spent 7 years managing my mom's life (she had dementia) and she passed away in May at 96. Now I'm getting back or trying to find my own path again. I teach yoga now which I love. But the rest of my life is a mess! So much paper and memorabilia to sort through!! So what did I get for this project?? More paper! Couldn't be more appropriate. I don't know how to start with this paper and all the other paper in my life. All I can say is wow!!"




memories, photos, weave together to tell our story

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)